 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: dibble
Date: 2014-10-25 16:19
Sorry. Accidentally posted in for sale section.
Does anyone know if he plays on a B40 style piece? It seems easier to get that type of sound than a kaspar style piece.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2014-10-25 17:44
I don't think that David Shifrin's sound is significantly influenced by his mouthpiece. I would imagine that he chooses one model over another primarily by the ease with which it allows him to produce his sound.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-25 17:54
I do not know the dimensions of the mouthpiece used by David Shifrin, but I CAN tell you that you can get a big, beautiful sound on just about ANY mouthpiece using your air correctly.
You need to push the air from your core using your abdominal muscles (just taking a full breath is not enough, the air needs to be actively pushed out).
You then need to ensure it flows unobstructed, in a quick and focused manner all the way to the tip of the reed/mouthpiece (the business end of the sound production). A key element here is to either leave your tongue in a natural, relaxed stance OR shape it as you would to say the sound "EEEEE."
This stands in stark contrast to some advice out there (though well intentioned I'm sure) to form the inside of your mouth as if you were saying "AHHHHH." The theory for "AHHH" is that it gives you a bigger oral cavity and this supposedly relates to bigger sound. Unfortunately it does two really bad things. The first thing is that it UN-FOCUSES the air were you need it focused most (the tip of the mouthpiece) AND most importantly it partially stops up the top of your trachea with the back of your tongue. This is most commonly referred to as "open throat" but it is actually "closed throat."
The final bit which is really quite necessary to finish off the focused airway is to tongue the reed by using the very tip of the tongue (as tip as you can get anyway) to the very tip of the reed (the best imagery is to draw a dot at the very center of the tip of the reed just touching the curve of the cut). This not only ensures that the air is perfectly focused to this point, but it also achieves a very clean and easily controllable articulation. If you tongue further down the reed with a point further back on the tongue, your first attempts at this will feel buzzy and uncomfortable to the tongue. After a week or so this feeling goes away. I HIGHLY recommend tonguing tip to tip.
The B40 is a fine mouthpiece but in no way does it represent a certain sound. Every player finds for her or himself a mouthpiece that tunes well, responds well (articulation wise) and allows them to achieve the sound they desire (by that I mean doesn't 'get in the way').
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-10-25 19:03
David Schifrin has said that his favorite mouthpiece is one made for him by Ramon Wodkowski.
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Author: dibble
Date: 2014-10-26 02:06
Paul, i understand the air thing
I disagree with your opinion that mouthpieces have no inherent sound. I have recorded myself on a grabner and the b40 lyre. The b40 sounds leaner overall and the high notes have a pointed sound. The throat is very focused. The grabner is wider (in a good way) and sounds more open and vocal in the high notes.
Neither of these mouthpieces are getting in my way with the right reed.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2014-10-26 04:06
Hello Dibble,
I think that Paul and I would assert that if you played the B40 for a month and recorded it, and then played the Grabner for a month and recorded it that the outcome is going to be far more similar than you would think...(provided you have a strong concept of what your sound is).
Again -- I think that David Shifrin is going to sound like David Shifrin on anything that he chooses to play.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: dibble
Date: 2014-10-26 08:50
So, if mouthpieces make little difference in your sound (granted that it does not get in the way), then all mouthpiece makers describing the sound quality of their individual products are bs-ing us?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-26 09:13
Ok, I'd like to tweak my response. There are some general characteristics to a mouthpiece's sound based on what is easier for you to do with it. Although it is truer to say what James says above. A player will take on a new mouthpiece and assimilate its characteristics into the the way he or she plays.
There is quite a bit of "marketing" lingo out there to get customers to buy mouthpieces (can't blame a guy for trying). My favorite is the claim that a mouthpiece has a "dark sound" which has mostly been code for "it plays at a slightly lower pitch." As far as Vandorens go, that would be the 13 Series versions of their mouthpieces (I try to avoid these). The 'standard pitch' versions of their mouthpieces are much better acoustic matches for clarinet in my opinion. Why buy a mouthpiece that forces you to work harder to keep in tune and forces you to buy more barrels to solve the very problem they cause? Just silliness.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: Ed
Date: 2014-10-26 16:02
Hate, to get off topic, but while dark and bright seems to mean different things to different people, I have never understood or found "dark" to mean lower pitch. It has always seemed to me that it refers to characteristics of tone and color.
I do feel that the 13 series is perhaps a little low (especially in the throat region), but there are many, including numerous pros who use them with great results.
The key is always what works best for you- your concept, physique, etc. I have often found others who can get completely different results than I would on the same set up.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2014-10-26 16:46
Quote:
So, if mouthpieces make little difference in your sound (granted that it does not get in the way), then all mouthpiece makers describing the sound quality of their individual products are bs-ing us?
No, they're not bs-ing us. They are attempting to describe an intangible quality to the best of their ability -- and their descriptors are rooted in their experience of what the mouthpiece does for their sound in general.
The clear mental conception of their individual sound will work to steer a mouthpiece to be what is in the clarinetist's head.
Now if a musician doesn't have a clear mental conception of what their sound is, they're more at the mercy of what the mouthpiece/equipment "does" for them.
I think it's better to say it like this: If the individual's mental conception and the equipment's playing characteristics are well aligned, the musician will have an easier time producing their mental conception -- and that ease-of-play translates tangibly to the audience.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: TomS
Date: 2014-10-26 20:38
David Shifrin was a featured soloist with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, playing the Weber 2nd Concerto, back in about 1990 (if memory serves). Mr. Shifrin was very friendly and I had an opportunity to talk to him backstage. He stated that he was using a Selmer Series 10(G?) clarinet with a Jim Kanter mouthpiece
His sound was round, sweet, very dynamic, amazingly flexible and with a hint of vibrato at times. All attending clarinetists were thoroughly impressed!
I was the recording engineer for the ASO at the time, but playback of my usual very good recordings could not replicate the nuance, ambiance and emotional involvement of the real performance. Even the best recordings are a pale approximation of the real thing. You gotta take those Grado headphones off or get away from a pair of Quads Electrostats and attend a live concert to really hear what music is truly all about!!
A little comment on setups versus the player ... I studied briefly with the clarinet instructor at a local College. In the days before worrying about disease transmission, we swapped complete setups and compared. I was using a Evette E13 with an original Hite MP and George was using a really old R13 with a James Pyne MP. After adjusting to each others setup over the span of a few minutes, George still mostly sounded like himself and I mostly sounded like myself. It seems that about 75% of your sound comes from behind your nose ...
Tom
Post Edited (2014-10-26 20:43)
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Author: Ed
Date: 2014-10-26 23:07
Quote:
It seems that about 75% of your sound comes from behind your nose ...
Yes, I think that area is the brain. It comes from one's own concept. While physique has a certain contribution, depending on what mouthpiece I try, I may use a slightly different oral cavity, pressure, support, etc to get my "voice".
Ultimately, one chooses a set up that makes it easiest to get to that point.
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Author: eddiec ★2017
Date: 2014-10-27 04:03
For what its worth, one my my teachers said he heard Shifrin play as a (grad?) student, and he already had his unique sound by then.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2014-10-27 05:01
It's interesting to read the impressions people have of his sound. I have two of my own.
I had the opportunity to play second to him years ago in a concert in Philadelphia. I'm not certain when, but it was, I think just after he left the Cleveland Orchestra, maybe the following season. He was playing at the time on a Pyne mouthpiece (don't know the facing) and I don't think for a couple of reasons that he was playing on a 10G. He had, as I heard him from the seat next to him, a very wide, round, slightly foggy almost saxophone-like sound. It was interesting to listen to although it wasn't my taste in clarinet tone (then or now. No matter - he was principal and I was 2nd).
My wife and I heard him play in Philadelphia a few years ago in the Perelman Theater, a small room and stage inside the Kimmel Center, which also houses Verizon Hall where the Philadelphia Orchestra plays. Our seats were first row practically in the center, which in that hall is almost underneath the soloist. If he had stood a little closer to the edge of the stage apron his bell might have dripped on me. So I was again close to him. The sound I heard that afternoon was almost diametrically opposite what I had heard all those years earlier. The sound was clean, firm with maybe even a little of what most of you call "brightness." No fog, no saxophone, just very clean, at times almost hard clarinet tone. I'm certain the hall's acoustic burnished the tone some, so that it probably sounded much more mellow and gentle in the back rows. But the surprising point for me was the difference between the sounds of the relatively young and the more mature player.
Did he change his equipment to produce the change in sound? Well, he was not likely to get the sax-like sound of 40 years ago on a 10G, and he probably would have been hard pressed to force the sound of 2010 out of a Pyne mouthpiece. But I'd bet his equipment choices followed his change of concept, not the other way around. You first develop an idea and then look for equipment that best facilitates the realization of that idea.
Karl
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Author: dibble
Date: 2014-10-27 11:40
Maybe if you had a sound concept like david shifrin you could get a sound like his on a tenor saxophone.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2014-10-27 16:46
Karl's comment
Quote:
You first develop an idea and then look for equipment that best facilitates the realization of that idea.
is right on the money. It seems that too often, players seem to think it goes the other way.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-27 19:14
Ok, more tweaking.
Today I auditioned a German mouthpiece (Playnic Soloist) on a Boehm clarinet (not always the best idea). And I got a really stuffy sound with almost no overtones. The moutpiece features VERY thick rails (tip and side), a deep concave baffle and an "A Frame" tone chamber. These features tend to take upper partials out of the sound. The problem is that to project over an orchestra without having to muscle your way there, you NEED a rich series of overtones.
Here is the issue that professionals deal with: What amount of upper partial richness do you need vs. what you can stand (the sound you hear around you will be buzier or more shrill but that is not what gets projected just a few feet from you)?
A friend of mine just had an issue with a mouthpiece from a top custom maker. It sounded to him "like bees buzzing" in his head. But with little or no effort from him, those around him commented on how much more present his sound was (in a good way of course).
This is also part of the dark (what YOU hear as more muffled) vs bright (what you hear as more shrill) debate. But in reality what projects just a few feet away is quite different and can be the difference between a sound that works in context of the orchestra or one that doesn't. This is not an easy problem to work out. It takes time, experience and the feedback of trusted peers.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: Ed
Date: 2014-10-27 20:18
Great points. Very often a mouthpiece or other equipment can sound completely different in an ensemble or in the hall than in the studio. I have sometimes tried equipment that I think sound lovely when I am alone practicing and then walk in to a rehearsal to find out that I am getting buried because it lacks the harmonics and energy to project.
I have heard anecdotes from a number of people who talk about sitting next to some great player and thinking that the tone is a little reedy or bright and then going a dozen feet away or into the hall to find that what you hear out there is lovely and vibrant and not reedy at all.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-10-28 06:09
Yes, the Nick Kuckmeier French Boehm mouthpieces have been disappointing to me also I've tried both the soloist model and the Play Easy B2 model. Both have extremely dark sounds, emphasizing the fundamental, with not much resonance or dynamic range either. The Soloist model is even duller than the B2 model. I do find them very stable, unlikely to squeak or jump unbidden up to the twelfth. and they don't produce any annoying grunts or subtones either. They also have the kinds of rails that I like for fast, rounded articulation. But the sound just lacks ping and ring. I've had a few worked on by good mouthpiece techs, but even they find it hard to get them to focus well.
After listening to how well Wenzel Fuchs sounds playng his Nick Kuckmeier on his Wurlitzer Oehler instrument, the French Boehm versions are a big letdown.
Post Edited (2014-10-28 21:32)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-28 06:43
Actually the mouthpiece I tried was a full on German mouthpiece. I used a modified Buffet barrel to allow the larger diameter tenon. I have Wurlitzer mouthpieces that sound much more rich in harmonics though I still don't think they are as resonant as they could be due to the acrylic body.
Perhaps Mr. Fuchs has a customized version of the Soloist?
............Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2014-10-28 14:45)
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-10-28 21:02
But what of the acrylic material on the Heaven model EMS that you recently reviewed? Wasn't that mouthpiece resonant and focused?
Johannes Gleichweit in Austria makes all his many models of an Acrylic composite. But his are expressly for Oehler and Reform-Boehm istruments with German and Vienna style bores. The bores on his mouthpieces are just about all around 15 mm or larger, not a match for most regular Boehm system clarinets today (though I wonder how they would fit on older generation big-bore clarinets once popular in American, such as the Selmer BT, CT, or Leblanc Dynamic, or Big Easy.
For the Boehms most of us play today, Gleichweit offers only the usual array of Vandoren mouthpiece (M13, M15, M30, Masters, B40, etc). in rubber, of course.
I'd like to see him follow EMS and design an "American style" mouthpiece in collaboration with one or more American clarinetists.
Gleichweit's wares can be seen at http://www.maxton.at.
Post Edited (2014-10-28 21:34)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-28 21:35
The ESM acrylic that I auditioned stood out BECAUSE it was more focused and resonant than the Wurlitzers. The ESM had metal bands at the top and bottom of the mouthpiece tenon. There were also metal particles embedded throughout the material. The manufacturers US representative stated that both of these characteristics were present to purposely contribute to focus and resonance. I will shortly be able to audition an ESM without the embedded metal material and make some sort of judgement on my own.
....................Paul Aviles
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2014-10-28 22:34
Gleichweit does make models for French clarinets. If you look under "Boehm models for cane reeds", his models "Maxton" are the last 4 listed (odd way of advertising yourself!)
I've tried his mouthpieces and found them to be as disappointing as Kuckmeiers. They are all about trying to be "dark" and have no ping. Another gripe I have with Kuckmeier's is their inconsistency. All brands are inconsistent, but I would have expected more with all the hype around their computer technology, etc.
To me there is still no replacement for the custom maker.
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-10-28 23:26
Thanks for pointing out the Maxton French models (hidden among the Vandorens) made of rubber with a bore size of 14.8 mm instead of 15.0+ mm. Also thanks for the warning so we don't waste time getting up hopes that these are beautifully focused resonant pieces that approximate the best Oehler sound on the French Boehm. Hope springs eternal!
While we're on this topic, have you tried the new Uebel Boehm clarinets that seem to be earmarked for the American market? Have they come any closer to the mark of reaching a full overtone German sound on a non-Reform Boehm clarinet?
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2014-10-29 02:49
Ok, I firmly believe that the German sound is just that, a German clarinet acoustic (PLUS all the other musical nuances of course).
I tried (the same evening as the ESM mouthpiece) the Uebel Advantage Boehm clarinet. Being a Boehm clarinet it sounds like a Boehm clarinet......but it is quite good. It is definitely more along the line of the Buffet as opposed to Selmer or Leblanc acoustically speaking. The entire line (three distinct models) come with silver plated keys and leather pads. The finishing is way beyond what Buffet puts into their base R13s so Buffet had better watch out lest they be left behind in the customer satisfaction surveys!!!!
The Uebel Advantage is a a really good clarinet and I look forward to trying out the top Boehm model later in November along with more Ernst Schreiber mouthpieces.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: RLarm
Date: 2014-10-29 03:29
It's interesting that the initial question was asked and where the contributors have taken it!
I studied with David for one year in the early 80's. By that time he had switched from Pynes to Kanters. ( I don't know what model Jim was making at that time.) A much discussed topic amongst the various students was the quality of sound that Shifrin was producing at that particular time. The consensus was a warm, dark but diffuse tone. His current sound is quite different with a lot more ring and focus and dare I say "brighter." However, even though his sound might have changed he is still a great musician who has matured even more in his interpretations of whatever he is performing. Isn't that the most important thing?
What was truly amazing about David was his ability to produce his sound with whatever he picked up to play. Several times he would demonstrate on my clarinet (at that time a Selmer 10G with a Kaspar 11) and sound EXACTLY like he did on his own set-up. I complained to him that whenever I played my Buffet R13 A clarinet (I bought it from him) I would get this buzzing sound which was driving me crazy. He picked it up, told me to "think the buzz out" and promptly played it with NO buzz. I have no idea how he did that! When I returned to Hawaii for the summer I had my local repairman take a look at the horn. He told me there was a bug hole in one of the pads which was causing the buzz.
Robert Larm
Woodwind Supervisor, Royal Hawaiian Band
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2014-10-29 03:50
Much of what has been discussed here can be summed up by Wenzel Fuchs' famous statement, "The German sound begins in the mind," to which we could add, "as do any of David Shifrin's evolving sound concepts or any other serious clarinetists' sound concepts"; but it doesn't hurt to have the right mouthpiece and clarinet to help the concept along.
A few years ago I saw Shifrin playing a Buffet Tosca and was told he had a Ramon Wodkowski mouthpiece on it.
Post Edited (2014-10-29 03:53)
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Author: RLarm
Date: 2014-10-29 04:07
Yes seabreeze, I'm assuming that he is using a Wodkowski mouthpiece at the moment. Ramon studied with him at Yale and endorses him on Ramon's website.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2014-10-29 05:39
David Shifrin currently plays Yamaha CSG II's, according to the word that I hear (and backed up on the Yamaha website).
James
Gnothi Seauton
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